The city of Jerez is starting to attract British property-hunters in search of
an authentic Spanish environment that’s easy to get to, and where a round of
golf is not out of the question. Reasonable prices in the southern
Andalusian city 25 miles from Cadiz are a draw, but even more important is
the potential for futher capital growth, in contrast to costas blighted by a
glut of identical urbaniza-ciones built for the overseas market in
the boom years.
Tony Haslam, a finance broker from Ormskirk in Lancashire, says: “I have never
been tempted by the costas. There’s such a density of property there. I
think the market there was at its height two years ago, and people looking
to sell now will be lucky to get what they paid.”
So Haslam has turned his attention inland, and having already bought on a golf
development near Granada, he’s just expanded his portfolio to Jerez. “It’s
unspoilt, it hasn’t seen tourism like the coast. And, as in Granada, I don’t
feel I’d be reliant on overseas buyers if I come to sell. There’s a big
take-up by Spanish nationals. Jerez is that little bit special — and not
particularly expensive.”
Barbara Wood, who covers Andalusia for The Property Finders search agency,
agrees. “If anyone had suggested to me five or even three years ago that
Jerez was about to become a hive of activity, a sort of mini-hub in western
Andalusia, I would have laughed. It was so difficult to get to, it was not
on the radar. All that has changed and it is all down to infra-structure
improvements.”
The motorway linking Jerez to Alge-ciras is finished and other road
improvements mean the Atlantic beaches and seaside resorts at El Puerto de
Santa Maria (embarkation point for Columbus’s voyages to America) and
Sanlucar de Barrameda are just 15 minutes away.
“Jerez has a great little airport, 10 minutes from the city,” Wood adds.
“Ryanair comes in from Stansted and Monarch starts Manchester-Jerez flights
on March 23. There’s a shuttle four times a day to Madrid.”
Haslam has been an early buyer in a scheme by developer Peninsula that borders
three holes of the Montecastillo golf course. He has put down 25% of the
€670,000 (£450,000) price for one of 40 semidetached villas with a raft of
top-of-the-range features — underfloor heating, laundry rooms, “cathedral”
ceilings, swimming pools — in their 2,500sq ft or so of living space and
860sq ft of terrace.
The course, which opened 13 years ago, was designed by Jack Nicklaus and
hosted the Volvo Masters for several years. As well as its stately
castellated clubhouse, it is served by a five-star hotel and spa — all about
to undergo a £27m renovation by its new owners.
The exploitation of the real-estate possibilities around the course has only
just got going. The villas will not be ready for two years, while opposite
the hotel a development of 331 apartments is also still at the foundation
stage.
Prices at Altos de Montecastillo — which backs onto another popular sporting
venue, the Jerez motor racing circuit — range from £145,000 to £212,000 for
a 765sq ft penthouse with the same area again of roof terrace. Local and
overseas buyers are already putting down their deposits. “We think the
British market wants to see real Spain,” says Gaspar Lino, boss of
Peninsula, which is marketing the apartments.
Mind you, once they descend into Jerez from Montecastillo, with its
multi-lingual brochures and welcoming marketing suites, they might find it’s
all a bit too real and way too Spanish. At first sight, the city, which has
a population of just under 200,000, appears to be the answer to a genteel
alcoholic’s dream, the street decoration consisting of ancient sherry casks
proclaiming the bodegas — Gonzalez Byass, Tio Pepe, Garvey — that
made the tipple the byword for civilised inebriation throughout the world.
The old town’s narrow streets conceal magnificent palaces ripe for renovation
— but they could prove a challenge for even the most ardent property hunter.
For a start, explains Luciano Gil Del-gado, a local lawyer, their famously
aristocratic owners from the sherry-making elite don’t want to lose face by
admitting they are flogging the family piles. “They are very discreet about
selling,” he says, and are reluctant to use estate agents.
“It’s not considered good form to be seen to be selling your property,” adds
Ana Davidson, a property finder, who nevertheless thinks the market has such
potential that she is prepared to “put the boot in the door and open it”.
Using her local contacts, she has found two apartments, each of about
1,080sq ft, in a typical old patio house (constructed around a courtyard),
at £140,000 for both. On a quiet square near the old city walls is a
19th-century print works with living space above it, which would need a
total refurb to make a fabulous loft-style home with a roof terrace. It’s on
the market for about £300,000.
She introduces me to David Fraser-Luckie de la Parra. Though a grandee of an
old Jerez family that numbers a president of Venezuela among its forebears,
he is nevertheless breaking with local convention by going public about
flogging his 18th-century palace, which takes up the whole side of a square
and looks out onto a 13th-century church. With 18,200sq ft of living space,
it is a riot of crumbling grandeur.
He says, having perhaps not quite fully got the hang of the property hard
sell, that he would convert it into flats if he thought he could make any
money out of it, but the figures don’t add up. Still, as a flagship boutique
hotel, it could catch someone’s eye at £3m. If that doesn’t suit, he’s
developing an old house nearby set in 170 acres of vineyards into 14
serviced apartments. For £337,000, buyers will be offered one of 14 shares
in the development, equating to one of the very large apartments — 1,500sq
ft is the average size — and joint ownership of the vineyard and the sherry
it produces. He also casually mentions that he’s got “about 15” country
houses in the area, some in the national park, with prices starting at
£200,000; anyone who’s interested can e-mail him at dfl@dfl.net.
“But the area is not always a ‘cheap’ option,” Wood warns. “It is favoured by
top-end Spaniards and country properties tend to come with lots of land.”
There has been an influx of wealthy Spaniards from other areas buying “hobby”
farms of 100-200 acres, paying up to £5,000 an acre, says Ricardo Rebuelta,
a local landowner and general secretary of the regulatory body for the
city’s brandy industry (just as important as its sherry, he insists). Which
makes the price of one spread — a cortijo, or farmhouse,
converted into four separate houses, with outhouses, a pool and a courtyard,
plus land — seem astounding. Davidson says its prime location between Jerez
and the coast, with views to the Bay of Cadiz, plus the suggestion that it
might be rezoned for development, explains the fact that the owners, a
sherry dynasty, are asking £11.45m for the house and 140 acres.
Like much of Andalusia, Jerez has a rich Moorish heritage, and its full name,
Jerez de la Frontera, refers to its erstwhile position on the border between
Catholic Spain and Islam. Half an hour’s drive away — 15 minutes once the
work is completed later this summer on the A382 — is the next frontier
bastion: Arcos de la Frontera, a large village of white-painted houses
surmounted by a castle atop a honeycomb-coloured cliff.
Arnold Allen, who has retired from the oil and gas industry, and his wife,
Christine, have put down a 20% deposit on a three-bed detached villa at the
nearby Arcos Gardens, and will pay the rest of the £456,000 price when it is
finished later this year. The 440-acre development, with its olive groves
and newly opened golf course, will have 470 houses, with prices from
£235,000 for a high-spec two-bed townhouse to £890,000 for a five-bedroom
villa with pool, and a 23-room hotel and spa.
The Allens were attracted by the fact that Arcos Gardens will be a membership
golf club, bringing with it a sense of community. They are currently renting
nearby, and finding their Spanish neigh-bours’ approach to life a little
boisterous — though they enjoy excursions to the bars and restaurants in
Arcos town.
“When it’s all completed, it will turn into something special. A little
oasis,” says Christine.
Real Spain, then, but not too Spanish.
- The Property Finders, 01908 218 753, www.thepropertyfinders.com
